Things are ramping-up for the holiday season, but there still isn’t too much going on in Xbox 360 news this week. After hitting the Modern Warfare 2 360 bundle announcement, the guys talk Tokyo Game Show as Xav is about to leave to cover the event. We haven’t heard too many spicy rumors about possible announcements so this may be a rather tame TGS.
Shane Kim has announced his retirement from Microsoft after a long 19 year tenure. The guys glance over this news and don’t seem to have much to say about his departure. Shane has...
Richard and Dustin are out in Seattle PAX so it’s a 3 man show this week with Xav and Alexander being joined by Xbox Canada’s Community Manager Jake Reardon. With most of the industry showing games at PAX there is not much game news so this episode is largely dedicated to emails.
Batman starts out the past week’s games segment with Alexander trying to explain how to get the 40+ combo achievement and Jake talks a bit about Shadow Complex. Xbox avatars comes up and Alexander queries the possibility of having an avatar wearing...
The Avatar Marketplace debate continues with Xav back this week having bought a few choice items. Alexander has slowly pulled back on his rigid stance of not spending money on Avatar items, but he still gets some jabs in causing Xav to call Richard to cut his mic.
There is a bit of talk about the Halo movie with the news that Stephen Spielberg may be on the project and the subsequent news that it is still on hold. The rumored removal of the Xbox 360 Pro version from the offered line-up garners some discussion with an announcement expected in...
As the guys mention right up front, it seems like it is almost impossible for all 4 guys to be on at the same time these days. Richard is attempting to build his own joystick for fighters so no one can ever say he is not a real gamer/geek.
There have been images circulating around the internet showing an Xbox 360 Arcade box that is missing the Xbox 360 Pro listing and only shows the Arcade and Elite versions. This has led to speculation that Microsoft may be trimming the lineup to just these 2 packages. This would make a good counter to Sony’s...
Xav takes a big chunk of time up front here to talk about Shadow Complex. It sounds like he is enjoying it a lot and says that the game took him around 5 hours to finish the game the first time through with about 67% complete. At $15, it is a must-buy on August 19th.
The recent delays that have struck a large chunk of the games that were due out this holiday season are discussed. Alexander puts it well when saying that we wanted more big games to release outside of the holidays, but just pushing them out 3 months doesn’t really solve...
It’s Halo-mania. By there end of the year there will have been no less than 4 Halo related releases including 2 games, the animated Halo Legends series and Xbox Live hub Halo Waypoint. The series has great fiction and a huge fanbase, but this seems like an Activision technique.
Plants vs. Zombies is coming to XBLA and Alexander brings his typical negativity on the release. PopCap makes great games and releasing them on as many platforms as possible is a good thing. Richard does express a valid concern about how the controls will port...
For a Xbox Live Arcade release, Battlefield 1943 has dominated game podcasts since its release. Maybe the issues it had actually plays out well for the game in the long run since it is getting so much coverage.
We’re are in the doldrums of summer and the releases are few and far in-between. The Summer of Arcade is a good initiative by Microsoft to combat the slow release schedule even if only a couple of the games are going to be really good. As the guys point out, it is weird that The Secret Of Monkey Island: Special Edition isn’t...
The guys are talking about a comment made by the legendary Michael Pachter that Twitter, Facebook and last.fm were the biggest announcements for Microsoft at E3. They don’t seem to be completely on-board with the idea, but Richard does make some points that Microsoft wants to make the Xbox a centralized computing device more than gaming machine, and in that sense, it does make sense.
The developer of the Xbox Community game is saying that releasing games in that capacity is not fanancially viable and that it should be used to put out prototypes...
It never ceases to amaze how people like Steve Ballmer, who are high up in a company, don’t realize that they shouldn’t say something and then have to retract their statements. Ballmer has been known to do this kind of thing before so it really isn’t all that surprising. Regardless, it is probably safe to assume that Project Natal will be out next year.
Ghostbusters has been getting fairly middling reviews, but the general feeling seems to be that it is fun. Developer, Terminal Reality, stated during the development that...
The Zune HD news could be fairly big. The guys speculate that the Xbox 360 video marketplace could just be rebranded as a way to tie the two together, but there have also been rumblings of XBLA going to the Zune. This could promote an iPod App Store kind of environment for Zune and XBLA.
The announcement of the follow-up GTAIV episode The Ballad of Gay Tony has cause quite a stir. The title alone has caused a bit of an out-cry from the more closed-minded types and you have to give it Rockstar for always knowing how to get a response. The...
This week’s regular podcast is somewhat of a filler episode. With no Richard or Dustin it is a different show. Xav, Alexander and guest Kevin Kelly are talking a bit about E3, but they are trying to steer away from all-out predictions since that will be the main focus of a special Friday show this week.
The Joystiq Xbox 360 guys have put together another E3 announcements bingo card as they did last year. It contains most of the likeliest announcements. Take a look at it and keep it on hand come next Monday. We have included it after...
The whole crew has assembled in a rare aligning of the stars and it proves that the show is always better with all 4 of the guys.
We have almost all heard the rumors of a Zune HD, but Xav shares some information he has heard about the possibility that Microsoft may be renaming some Xbox services to tie the two together. This sounds very intriguing indeed.
To commemorate the episode that shares the number of Master Chief the guys have Bungie’s community manager Brian Jarrard on the show this week. They talk about the recent Halo 3 competition...
Wolverine gets some time this week, but the guys are not exactly loving it. Alexander puts it well when he says if you have played it and still like it, you haven’t played it enough. True or not, it’s funny.
1 Vs. 100 seems to be catching some good buzz with talk of the beta going around. It has been a long time coming since its announcement last year, but it looks like it may just deliver the kind of casual gaming that can draw in the mainstream and hardcore.
There have been rumblings that Konami is working on a new Xbox 360 title. ...
Richard was having some problems with his audio levels last week and things don’t seem to be much better this week.
We get a pretty good run-through of games this week. For those of you wishing that the 360 would get the Marvel vs. Capcom demo along with the PS3, you shouldn’t worry too much. Apparently the demo only includes a handful of character and only local multiplay with no vs. CPU mode. Also the guys are talking about the Wolverine demo which is great, download it and give it a try.
The last section of gamer’s emails...
According to the X3F guys there was a snafu with the Load Runner release in regards to its listing price. It was originally listed at 800 MS points, but after the error was pointed out by Alexander, the price was raised up to its announced 1200 MS points price.
There is a new Elite bundle coming which keeps its normal price of $399 US, but it will include Halo 3 and Fable II. This is a pretty amazing deal so if you don’t have an Xbox 360 yet, this is one to jump at.
In another weird case of Microsoft making mistakes Max Payne and Max Payne...
